Consumption emissions (4)

Leonie Cooper: In your work with fashion institutions and London Fashion Week, how are you raising awareness of and campaigning for an end to carbon-intensive and labour-exploiting fast fashion?

The Mayor: I am a major funder of the British Fashion Council (BFC), which is taking a leadership role to encourage the industry to understand the impacts of the fashion industry on the planet, people and communities. BFC has been hosting sustainable fashion shows since 2010 to showcase designers who work sustainably.
The BFC launched the Institute of Positive Fashion in recognition of the urgent challenge of climate change. In September 2017, in partnership with Vivienne Westwood and the BFC, I launched the “Fashion SWITCH to Green” initiative which signed up major brands which were committed to switching to a green energy supplier by 2020.
The BFC is also taking the lead in setting standards for equality and diversity. It is currently convening meetings to create workstreams, including working conditions, diverse representation, and education and careers to drive change. Last year, BFC partnered with BBC Earth to highlight the environmental impact of the fashion industry and promote more mindful consumer decisions.
Also the London Waste and Recycling Board through its work with policy-makers, business and citizens, has in the last two years: contributed to Environment Audit Committee’s ‘Fixing Fashion’ report; worked with fashion brands and retailers to help them roll out new circular business models; and campaigned as #LoveNotLandfill to raise awareness of clothing waste amongst London’s 16-24 year olds.

Household recycling rates

Caroline Russell: Data released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on 28 November 2019, showed that the average annual household recycling rate for London in 2018-19 is 33.4 per cent, an increase of just 0.3 per cent on the previous year, with 11 London boroughs recording falls. What are the implications of this for achieving your household recycling target?

The Mayor: Although only a 0.3 per cent increase in 2018-19, this should be viewed in light of the unique challenges London faces, being a dense urban environment with boroughs offering different collection services, less garden waste to achieve high recycling performance as experienced in the regions, and with a much higher density of flatted properties than the national average making recycling and food waste collections challenging.
There have been some significant improvements in some borough performance with increases over the past year of 6 per cent and 9 per cent in Lewisham and Croydon respectively. These improvements are largely down to these boroughs, through improving their waste contract provisions following discussions with my officers, introducing and expanding separate food waste collections, coupled with alternate weekly residual waste collection and collecting the six main dry recyclable materials. London also had the top six authorities with the lowest household waste generation per head.
In London responsibility for providing waste management services lies with boroughs and I have no powers in this area once waste service contracts are agreed and enacted. However, I am driving improvements in waste reduction and recycling rates by requiring boroughs to produce Reduction and Recycling Plans, which is a way for me to oversee actions at a local level. London still has a long way to go to meet my 50 per cent local authority waste recycling target by 2025 as set out in my London Environment Strategy (LES). I believe this is still achievable providing that all boroughs continue to put in place measures to meet my minimum level of recycling service (LES Proposal 7.2.1.a) and that Government in implementing their Waste and Resources Strategy takes early action to provide boroughs with the funding and support that they need.
For more detail see responses to Mayor’s Question 2019/20114 and Mayor’s Question 2019/20704